In The Spotlight

New CFI Analysis of House Candidates' Fifteen-Month Fundraising Reports

DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES FINANCIALLY POISED TO CONTEST FOR A HOUSE MAJORITY

As Many as 55 GOP Seats Could Be Endangered
by a National Democratic Tide

Democratic candidates are mobilizing the resources necessary to challenge the Republicans' 15-seat
margin of control of the House of Representatives, according to a Campaign Finance Institute analysis
of first-quarter financial reports filed with the Federal Election Commission in April.1 The
number of currently competitive races is still fairly modest (42 seats, 30 of which are now held
by Republicans). While the odds do not favor a net shift of 15 seats within so small a playing
field, the chances would increase if there were a tide of public sentiment affecting public
perceptions of the major parties or partisan turnout.

If such a tide emerges, Democratic challengers have made sufficiently strong starts to put 25 additional
GOP seats potentially in play. This increases the total number of Republican seats potentially at risk
to 55. The equivalent number of Democratic seats in this tier comes to 12 (beyond the 12 already
identified above as competitive). But no one at this stage is talking about a 2006 partisan tide for
the Republicans. National congressional preference polls in April do suggest that a Democratic surge
is possible, but six months is a long time in politics.

CFI's analysis confirms that 2006 will be an election in which control of the chamber could well be
in play. The close contest for majority control will affect every aspect of the electoral and
governing process, including the ways in which campaign funds are raised and disbursed. Future
CFI analyses will review patterns of fundraising and spending by candidates, parties and outside
groups in light of the battle for chamber control.

The Competitive Districts: Are There Enough?

To capture a majority, House Democrats must win 15 more contests than they lose. We began by looking at the
forty-two races defined as competitive either by Charles Cook or Stuart Rothenberg, two highly respected
analysts of congressional elections.2 The Democrats' best opportunities reside among the ten competitive
open seats (of a twenty-nine open-seat total), held by eight outgoing Republicans and two Democrats.
Within the ten districts, the races are roughly competitive financially, with the best funded candidate
from each party typically raising more than a half million dollars at the fifteen month point
(see Table 4c).

Cook and Rothenberg have also identified 32 incumbents whose races currently look competitive. As with open
seats, the partisan breakdown favors the Democrats. Twenty-two GOP incumbents are facing competitive races
so far, compared to only ten Democrats (see Tables 4a and 4b.) For the Democrats to regain a majority,
they must keep all of their own competitive seats, take most of the competitive open seats, and beat about
one-third of the vulnerable Republican incumbents. This would be tough (though not impossible) without a
national tide, but with such a tide, even more Republican seats come into play.

Races to Watch if a Tide Swells

We can think of the seats that could potentially come into play in two groups: those races already on the "watch lists"
of professional election analysts, and others identified by CFI below. Rothenberg and Cook have identified 17
Republican-held seats and 9 Democratic ones that they are not willing to call safe.3 Democratic challengers
are successfully raising money in all of the Republican-held districts (an average of $284,823). Republican
challengers are barely doing half as well in the Democratic seats on the watch lists
(see Tables 5a and 5b).

In addition to these races, CFI's analysis identified another 3 Democratic-controlled and 8 Republican-held
districts that warrant monitoring. These also appear in Tables 5a-5c. To make this list, a seat had to
satisfy two standards, in addition to not appearing on one of the Cook or Rothenberg lists: (1) the best-funded
candidate of each party must have raised at least $200,000 by the time of this report, and (2) the district's
underlying partisanship must not be too strongly tilted in either direction.4

Based on past elections, CFI believes that this level of fundraising success indicates a challenger's potential
to fund a credible campaign. To be sure, challengers who have not yet raised this much money could eventually
endanger or even beat an incumbent, particularly in a late-primary state or one with low media costs.
Nevertheless, $200,000 is a good benchmark for a 15-month overview. In the 2004 cycle, about 30 percent
of the major party challengers who raised $200,000 by the 15-month stage, and who made it to the general
election, eventually won at least 45 percent of the two-party vote in the general election. (Less than 5
percent of all general election challengers received 45 percent of the vote in 2004). Additionally, almost
all of the challengers who won at least 45 percent of the vote had received $200,000 by this stage of the
cycle. Once again, the balance of candidates in this group favors the Democrats.

1
The financial figures used for this report generally are based on the
latest candidate filings for the reporting period ending March 31,
2006, which were due at the Federal Election Commission on April 15.
Figures for candidates from Indiana, North Carolina, and Ohio include
those filed in the pre-primary reports for the period ending April 12,
2006.

2 These include all races rated by The
Cook Political Report of April 14, 2006 as being a "tossup" race or
"leaning" toward either party, as well as all races rated the April 21,
2006 Rothenberg Political Report as being a "tossup", "tilting" or
"leaning". A race was included if listed in any of these categories by
either of these sources.

3 Rothenberg uses the word "favored"; Cook uses "likely". As before, we include a race if it made either list.

4 To satisfy this criterion, a district's average presidential vote in 2000 and 2004 could not
have been more than 7 percentage points higher than the average national presidential vote for the same party.